This is part 3 in a blog series called “4 Questions to a Happier Day.” Feel free to go back to Part 1 and Part 2. 

In my never-ending quest to “get stuff done,” self care is usually the first item to slip off my agenda. When I’m hyper-focused on tasks, I engage in three habits that make most wellness coaches cringe:

1. I sacrifice sleep.
2. I eat convenient food.
3. I don’t exercise.

By their powers combined, these three habits create a crap-storm of bad feelings in my physical body. And since my physical body is kind of ya know, the vital vessel that needs to be working properly for anything else to happen in my life, my second Good Day Question has to revolve around taking care of my body. 

So at the end of each day, the second question I ask is: 

Did I treat my body well?  

I worded this vaguely on purpose. I want to avoid the inflexible metrics I’ve used before, such as how many minutes I worked out or how many calories I consumed or whether or not I tracked every bite of food I took. “Treating my body well” can take a number of different forms, such as…

• Getting adequate sleep. This will look like more or less, depending on the day. 
• Eating healthy food. This will look different on different days, but I am smart enough to have an overall understanding of what “healthy food” looks like for me. (And no, chocolate donuts, you don’t count.) 
• Moving my body. This can look like a lot of different things: taking a dance break away from my computer (the joys of working from home! Although I bet you’d all love to see me break it down to some old school Usher…), going to a yoga class, walking my kids to and from school, lifting weights, going for a run, stretching, etc. As long as I move my body in some type of way, I’ve got this metric down. 
• Drinking water. What do they say, like 75% of our body is water? 80% 110%? Basically, the experts tell us that we are skin-covered water balloons in constant danger of shriveling. So drinking water definitely needs to be considered. Man, I suddenly feel very thirsty, don’t you? 

I may not do all of these every day. That’s okay. The metric is not: “Did you get 7 hours of sleep and eat 5 servings of organic vegetables and workout for 60 minutes and drink 3,000 gallons of water???” Those are the types of inflexible metrics I used to use that ended up making me feel like a failure. 

The metric here is simply, “Did I treat my body well?” I can answer that, and if I can say YES most days, I’m having a good day. 

I’m curious… what metrics do you use to be nice to your body? I’d love for you to email me personally at [email protected] and let me know!

PS: If you’re a busy working mom who wants to simplify your work-mom life, but aren’t sure where to start… join me for my FREE *live* masterclass: How to Organize Your Family’s Home Without Exhausting Yourself or Resorting to Threats. Click here to save your spot!